Engine Comes Apart

[PJB]

I have followed this forum since I purchased my 2016 PP Ecoboost in October of 2016 so I joined the forum to post what has happened to my car at 12,000 miles. When I purchased my car my local dealer, which I am family friends with, did a transfer from an Atlanta dealership from which I found the car online. I got the help from a very reputable tuner on this site that worked with the dealership and purchased (a 93 custom tune, catch can, intake a plugs) to be built in the loan. I got a bout a thousand miles on the car and added the mods. The car has been flawless. I was leaving work and getting up to speed on a 4 lane, not a lot of throttle and very little boost and BAM, (oil, smoke, and pieces coming out from under the car). Luckily for me, I called my friends at the dealer and they sent a truck, brought it to the dealer, let me pull the tune out, they covered everything under warranty, put a 2017 engine off the assembly line in, and now I'm driving the car again.

So what happened to the engine was a rod broke into and the pieces came through the block as indicated in the pictures below. Also, the mechanic at the dealer showed be the balance shaft assembly, it also came apart. This was a Cleveland engine.

So, I am going to give my opinion on what I think occurred. A couple of months ago the car started idling rough so I got with my tuner and tried a few new tunes to get the idle corrected, we never could get it as smooth as I wanted. Here is my thought and my tuner thinks I may be onto something. Looking at the balance shaft assembly, I think it was a defective part from the factory and over time found a weak link in the rod.

I would love to here other inputs and what others may thinks. Glad to me a new member with some input.

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[NHEcoboost]

Damn! Sorry about your motor but glad to hear you got a replacement engine. Must be nice to have dealership connections, haha!

You don't suspect anything with the tune?

 

[PJB]

No, nothing to do with the tune, I feel confident in what the tuner has given. Also, when first starting the car for a few months I noticed a slight tick on the catch can side, it would clear up quick when the engine got warm. I never could decide if it was the injectors or the catch can, now I think it was probably early stages in the rod. It was the number 3 rod and that is around the area where I could hear a little noise.

I will put the tune back in once I get some miles on the new engine. The mechanic even hooked my catch can back up even though I left the oem hose for them to use.

 

[Marvinmadman]

I may have to use this same dealer :cheers:

 

[Maggneto]

Very glad to hear it was covered by Ford. Can you tell us who tuned the car? Did you recently fill up with gas prior to the event? What Gas station did you use?

 

[Turbong]

Damn I guess that's why you shouldn't mod till your past at least 15k miles, besides that unfortunate factory defective motor you got I think the real story is how nice it is to have family working for Ford.

On a side note, I noticed you have the old PCV what was the build date?

 

[SYK]

If the car ran fine for months without knock/running excessively lean.. it probably didnt grenade one day because the tune decided to let the engine go. Probably combination between defective parts/cycles of stress at higher power level + who knows what.. I am just glad you got it covered under warranty.

 

[chadhtx40]

What mods do you have?

 

[Blyman93]

I also have a slight ticking sound on startup. I drive like grandma until my oil temp is up to normal and by then the ticking subsides. I have been tuned and modded since my first couple thousand and now I'm at 13500.

Also I experienced this rough idle I think. As in every now and then the cars rpm goes slightly under 750rpm and has a vibrating sound. Very very slight shaking for just a moment. Then gone. Also sometimes coming to a stop the rpm dips under that mark and the rough happens for like 15-30 sec. It happened on stock as well as 91 tune. I read somewhere that this weird idle is the computer. A quick search should yield that result, but all this to say I have experienced everything to a T as your issues I assume. A little unsettling but hey I need a MAP shorty anyways. Let er rip tater chip!

 

[solodogg]

manual I assume?

 

[Tommy556]

It might be the crappy 91s fault. You need to up those octanes somehow or else the car won't be happy in the long run I think.

 

[PJB]

Very glad to hear it was covered by Ford. Can you tell us who tuned the car? Did you recently fill up with gas prior to the event? What Gas station did you use?

I would rather not mention the Tuner or the Dealer, just thankful they worked with me. As far a the fuel, I have a Chevron/Texaco Card so I use their 93 and had just filled up.

Damn I guess that's why you shouldn't mod till your past at least 15k miles, besides that unfortunate factory defective motor you got I think the real story is how nice it is to have family working for Ford.

On a side note, I noticed you have the old PCV what was the build date?

Very fortunate on the Dealer relation, otherwise I probably would not have modified unless I felt real comfortable with who I was working with. If I remember correctly, I think the build date was a May/June 2016 timeframe.

If the car ran fine for months without knock/running excessively lean.. it probably didn't grenade one day because the tune decided to let the engine go. Probably combination between defective parts/cycles of stress at higher power level + who knows what.. I am just glad you got it covered under warranty.

What is strange, with this new engine in, I cannot recall the bad engine ever running as smooth as this new one even before I added the tune and mods. Maybe the engine was just one of those that was prone to give up, I don't think by what happened to mine that everyone will experience this. Mine was probably one of those few unfortunate ones.

What mods do you have?


All I have done is the 93 custom tune on an SCT, intake, step colder plugs, catch can, and an aluminum water pump pulley.

I also have a slight ticking sound on startup. I drive like grandma until my oil temp is up to normal and by then the ticking subsides. I have been tuned and modded since my first couple thousand and now I'm at 13500.

Also I experienced this rough idle I think. As in every now and then the cars rpm goes slightly under 750rpm and has a vibrating sound. Very very slight shaking for just a moment. Then gone. Also sometimes coming to a stop the rpm dips under that mark and the rough happens for like 15-30 sec. It happened on stock as well as 91 tune. I read somewhere that this weird idle is the computer. A quick search should yield that result, but all this to say I have experienced everything to a T as your issues I assume. A little unsettling but hey I need a MAP shorty anyways. Let er rip tater chip!

Blyman93, you have almost exactly the same scenario I had with the idle issues, the ticking issue, and I also drive interstate daily for my commute. I would say I only rang the car out hard a handful of times.



manual I assume?

It is an automatic.

 

[SYK]

No Ecoboom OP had shed this much light to his/her situation. Prop to you and thanks for contributing knowledge to community.

 

[Spykexx]

OP I don't mean to make light of your situation at all! (Although it seems to have worked out wonderfully for you!) But it's nice to see it's not just manuals blowing up. Many say that it's only manuals, and LSPI-type situations causing it. Maybe if it does start coming to autos more often as these start to hit 30-40k (Not that I wish anyones motor blows up!) Ford will take a bit of a more lenient step towards this.

Awesome to see that your dealer took care of you! I don't have ins with Ford, but my brother is the GM for a huge shop here that does quite a bit of warranty work for a Ford dealership. So I get some "help" from time to time haha.

 

[jbailer]

OP I don't mean to make light of your situation at all! (Although it seems to have worked out wonderfully for you!) But it's nice to see it's not just manuals blowing up. Many say that it's only manuals, and LSPI-type situations causing it. Maybe if it does start coming to autos more often as these start to hit 30-40k (Not that I wish anyones motor blows up!) Ford will take a bit of a more lenient step towards this.

Awesome to see that your dealer took care of you! I don't have ins with Ford, but my brother is the GM for a huge shop here that does quite a bit of warranty work for a Ford dealership. So I get some "help" from time to time haha.

That's the thing with troubleshooting and why so many people are bad a it. Human nature is to find problem "buckets" and we like to classify everything into the buckets that we know rather than look for the true root cause. People hear about a problem and suddenly everyone has it no matter if their symptoms are completely different, even imagined problems. First it was all the Spain motors, then all manuals and LSPI. When in truth, if we could get a true root cause analysis which is a bit difficult after the fact, we'd probably find there were many issues including tuner related problems.

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